The Elephant Man (1980)
Directed by David Lynch
A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century London.
25 connections found
View:
25 connections, in both directions
What critics compared The Elephant Man to
Then it struck me: Malek wasn’t just channelling hurt; he was channelling Hurt—Malek’s quiet and nearly abashed delivery of lines, in a way that emphasizes both Freddie’s extra teeth and the emotional effect of being singled out for them, reminded me of John Hurt’s performance as John Merrick, in David Lynch’s “The Elephant Man.”
Pattinson traces his lineage back to the monochrome masters; modern-day man of a thousand faces Dafoe delivers a side-splitting, nail-biting tour-de-force that ranks with anything on his CV; Blaschke's cinematography is phenomenal 4x3 and Eggers brings everything together in a film that deserves to keep company with one of his biggest inspirations, David Lynch's The Elephant Man.
But a more unexpected filmmaker that came to mind was David Lynch, particularly his The Elephant Man, which blended a strong, stark visual style to depict an environment of pervasive cruelty.
“12 Years” is scored to Hans Zimmer’s high-gloss, sometimes “Inception”-level thriller rumble; the precise, often ravishing cinematography is by McQueen’s usual collaborator, Sean Bobbitt (“Place Beyond The Pines”); and the extremely precise and evocative costume design is by Patricia Norris (“Days Of Heaven,” “Twin Peaks,” “The Elephant Man,” “The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford”).
Whether intentionally or not, Vigalondo peppers this, his first feature, with references to other movies - "Frankenstein," "The Elephant Man," "Lost Highway," "Seconds" and "The Time Machine" immediately come to mind.
Advertisement
This sequel is also goofy, also eye-popping - see it in IMAX 3D if you really want to fry your optic nerve - and also weakly scripted, borrowing from various Star Wars films plus The Elephant Man ("I'm not a program!").
David Lynch did it in “The Elephant Man” (1980), his shrewdly restrained, underbelly-of-London Gothic horror weeper, which revealed John Merrick, beneath his warped and bubbled flesh, to be a figure of entrancing delicacy.
But when they have, the results have often been moving and memorable — like David Lynch’s “The Elephant Man” and Peter Bogdanovich’s “Mask.”
The film’s backstory on the Phantom owes something to David Lynch’s film of The Elephant Man.
It's amazing when you consider that John Hurt gave an alarmingly subtle performance as the equally screwed-up The Elephant Man as recently as 1980.
Advertisement
The Hollywood version ultimately was made by David Lynch — a logical choice with Eraserhead (1977) and The Elephant Man (1980) to his credit.
The list of actors with voluminous credentials includes Richard Harris, as Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts; Zoe Wanamaker as Madame Hooch, the Quidditch coach and flying instructor; comedian John Cleese as Nearly Headless Nick; the marvelous Robbie Coltrane as Hogwarts' lovable, bumbling giant and groundskeeper, Rubeus Hagrid; John Hurt ("The Elephant Man") as the wand seller, Mr. Ollivander; Dame Maggie Smith, an Oscar winner for her role as a teacher at a Scottish girls' school in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," as Professor Minerva McGonagall; and Alan Rickman ("Truly, Madly, Deeply"), who appears as the creepy professor of potions, Severus Snape.